AI4LA: An Intelligent Chatbot for Supporting Students with Dyslexia, Based on Generative AI

In the last two years, thanks to the advent of generative AI, new avenues are opening up in its use in the educational field, e.g. through the use of ChatGPT. But, while generative AI is opening up new avenues for both teaching and learning, there are no proposals for its use in the context of students with Dyslexia and in general for students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD), that afflict between 10 and 15 percent of people worldwide. In this paper we present AI4LA, a web intelligent chatbot based on generative AI, with the aim to help dyslexic students during their learning process. This system is capable of analyzing conversational data to model students' understandings and misconceptions, thereby offering personalized educational support. Significantly, we highlight the chatbot's ability to create Concept Maps from conversations, visually representing the student's knowledge structure and progression. An evaluation of the effectiveness of the system is presented, in a real-world educational settings, based on feedback from a sample of dyslexic students. The findings suggest that our system holds great promise in revolutionizing the way dyslexic students engage with educational content, making learning more accessible, interactive, and effective.